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November 13, 2012

Too Many Generals

You can't tell the generals without a scorecard as Gen. Petraeus (Ret.) is joined in scandal by Gen. John Allen. All this brass and... well, let's segue back to Benghazi and try to anticipate some possible Team Obama spin.

Suppose (*SUPPOSE*) this report holds up and the atack on the consulate and annex was an attempt to free some Libyan militants from an off-the-books CIA detention center (ostensibly barred by an Obama Executive Order.) Very embarrassing for the CIA. And it might explain the non-response from the Pentagon when the consulate was attacked - the CIA would have been delighted to get aerial support but having the US military put their muddy boots inside a non-existent non-allowed CIA detention center might have created some awkward moments.

And the CIA evaluation of the attacker's motives may have been skewed by their desire to keep their little secret:

A few days later, Petraeus testified in a closed session to Congress
that the attack was due in large part to an anti-Islam video and a
spontaneous uprising, according to reports from the hearing.

Congressional leaders say privately they believe they were lied to by Petraeus when he testified shortly after the attack.

And of course Susan Rice made her many statements on Sept 16 blaming the video, claiming to have relied on intelligence community talking points.

Implausible though it may seem, she may be telling the truth. Of course, the CIA's desire to cover up the attacker's real motives ran parallel to the Administration's desire to cover up the notion that an actual terrorist attack on the 9/11 anniversary had been missed.

GREAT MINDS RUN IN THE SAME CHANNEL (Fools think alike): James Taranto makes the same case more powerfully. Hmm - there is no way we are the only two people to whom this has ocurred. The Benghazi hearings may move the dial up to eleven.

TEMPORARY DETENTION, OR, WHAT'S A SPY TO DO? I assume the CIA has some right to hold prisoners briefly pending a transfer to the appropriate authorities. Who those authorities might be in Libya is an interesting question. And when does 'temporary' become long-term?

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AT DiploMad - "The Petraeus scandal is a sideshow. Those of us who want to know what happened and why in Benghazi need to focus. Keep asking the basic questions. I have provided some of them and you can peruse the archive log for the many pieces on Benghazi.

Why was it Rice and not Clinton who appeared before the press? Who wrote the talking points for Ambassador Rice? What was the facility in Benghazi? If it was important, why wasn't it protected? Why was the Ambassador there on 9/11? What was the meeting with the Turkish official about? Were we "walking guns" to Syria's rebels?..."

There's been a video circulating where Broadwell and ghostwriter appear at an interview/book signing, and ghostwriter's body language is rather telling. Broadwell does all the talking about "her" book and ghostwriter twists nervously in his chair the entire time, ruffling his own hair and wringing his hands. I guess I was incorrect, but I thought his gestures implied his knowledge of the affair. Perhaps he was just annoyed to find himself ignored throughout.

Another sad point about this Patreaus affair, is that it allows Conservative Talking Heads a chance to spend their hours discussing something and removing them from any serious examination of other significant stuff

she had the magic access card; West Point, Army officer, JFK School, etc, and she was hawt to a bunch of middle aged officers. She's also an Alpha from what I read so she fit in.

Petraeus had a habit of surrounding himself with very bright people including the press at times. He is very open door and wants to hear from people. He processes it all very rapidly and can spit out 10 word summaries/orders at ninja speed.

I am a big Petraeus fan for his intellect, leadership, hard ass decisiveness and other laudable attributes as a commander. But in profile he is a nerd and you know how easy it is to seduce a nerd which I believe has happened here.

I wonder when someone will start to speculate on the Lebanese connection and whether there is a Hezbollah relative in the family?

I'd go so far as to guarantee that almost 100% of our political "leaders" are regularly tempted by groupies, Henry Waxman being the only exception. It's just a fact, and I would guess that at least 75% avail themselves of the opportunity at some point, the remainder being in torrid love affairs with their own wives.

Point being, I know we'd like to think otherwise but Petraeus's weakness isn't even slightly out of the ordinary; i.e., this is clearly a setup.

Jeez,
Even JOM is going all commie now.
I've got the League of Conservation voters badgering me to thank Barry for leading us to a clean energy future on my right sidebar, Verengo solar telling me to get a zero down quote subsidized of course by Barry using my money and Americans for Tax Fairness telling me that W's tax cuts for millionaires are still hurting America on my left.

"Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come."

From Newsbusters--Dr K:
"CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think the really shocking news today was that General Petraeus thought and hoped he could keep his job. He thought that it might and it would be kept secret, and that he could stay in his position. I think what that tells us is really important. It meant that he understood that the FBI obviously knew what was going on. He was hoping that those administration officials would not disclose what had happened, and therefore hoping that he would keep his job. And that meant that he understood that his job, his reputation, his legacy, his whole celebrated life was in the hands of the administration, and he expected they would protect him by keeping it quiet.

And that brings us to the ultimate issue, and that is his testimony on September 13. That’s the thing that connects the two scandals, and that’s the only thing that makes the sex scandal relevant. Otherwise it would be an exercise in sensationalism and voyeurism and nothing else. The reason it’s important is here’s a man who knows the administration holds his fate in its hands, and he gives testimony completely at variance with what the Secretary of Defense had said the day before, at variance with what he’d heard from his station chief in Tripoli, and with everything that we had heard. Was he influenced by the fact that he knew his fate was held by people within the administration at that time?"

It now appears that Petraeus thought he could keep his job and that the affair would not become public. He thought that at the time he testified to the untruth about the video.

Who here said he was not blackmailed? Were you expecting a note in crayon? He is reputed to be a man of great honor. Such a man would have resigned. Why are we defending him? He clearly took the Administration's line when it wasn't true. We may now have stumbled on the reason.

Has anyone mentioned that this entire mess could have been created and put on a back
burner for when it was needed to get rid of a straight arrow by the Obama regime.

It sounds pretty far out but Vince Flynn, Brad Thor etc come up with this kind of stuff in every book. The ladies have a history of shady charities, money need etc.
how hard would it be to find a leftist to exploit them and set this up.

Surprises me that Narciso hasn't read the book detailing how to do it.

Narciso, I want to thank you again for all the great authors like Charles McCarry, that you have mentioned that I had never read before and enjoyed because of you.

Why would anyone suppose Petraeus was offered the DCI post without this being known by those making the offer? He laid down with dogs but he brought his own fleas and he would never have been offered the post without them.

1- Distracting everyone from the Benghazi deaths and his and Hillary's culpability.
2- Publicly destroying Gen. Petraeus' and Gen. Allen's reputations, while damaging the military.
3- Distracting everyone from the election results and the voter fraud issues.

I have to say, Ext, that picture of Waxman gave me a double take. I thought, wow, what an amazing photographer! That's the only picture of him that I've ever seen where he actually looks like a member of our species!

I have long forgotten the sequence (someone here will know it) all General officers have to go thru a promotion system that Includes the President and Congress. How straight arrows ever get approved with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Tom Harkin,
"While running for his Senate seat in 1984, and again while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Harkin has faced criticism for claiming that he had flown combat missions over North Vietnam."
From Wiki--
Plus now we have senators who don't pay their hookers and get reelected, senators who get a little help from sources that use their Boys and Girls Club assets. Now we apparently have added fake Indians practicing law without the proper licenses.
Hard to believe morals are carefully checked.

Thomas Lipscomb on FB seems to think Petraeus is getting his just deserts as he, too, assumes Petraeus lied.

"Thomas Lipscomb
DON'T CRY FOR THEM, AMERICA... the troops are glad to see them gone....

Both Allen and Petraeus are STAFF officers.... Petraeus doesn't have a single combat medal and never heard anything but a champagne cork fired in anger till he was 50. He has an infantry qualification badge he doesn't wear because wearing it makes it clear that he DOESN'T have the hard won Combat Infantry Badge that even Oliver Stone earned.

And the troops in Afghanistan regard Allen as a high ranking REMF who gets them killed following the kind of insane rules of engagement dreamed up by the girlies in the Obama WH who like our crypto gay mayor of NY find the carrying of weapons by troops just TOO TOO UTTERLY BELLIGERENT and DISCOURTEOUS .

Thomas Lipscomb And let me double down. I'd prefer a Jane Harmon who at least is conscientious and will work hard to learn her job at CIA over a know it all like Petraeus who it appears may have lied in testimony to save his own professional skin at the expense of DUTY, HONOR, AND COUNTRY when the chips are down."

____I'm in no position to know how the troops feel ut I can't believe that he didn't know the video story was carp...

I used to think the press would keep us informed and keep the government honest--because who else do we have to reveal the illegal, the indefensible, the corrupt? After these past 25 years, I no longer labor under that delusion.

In the early morning hours today I kept wondering, worrying, who can prevent the corruption in elections, who can expose the dirty machinations in this administration, who can help us, and I thought, 'people with power.' Who has the power? Congress...our senators and representatives...they're the only people with the power to defeat this leftward slide, this descent into socialism and even worse.' There are three branches of government, after all. Congress can hold hearings and keep the leftists from running over us, ruining the economy, foisting terrible problems onto us. The Tea Party must stay together. It must grow, become more powerful, elect more congressmen.

Because if they don't, then we'll keep being led by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, et al.

Unless people in Massachusetts, Illinois, and other blue states who keep electing socialists don't wake up, we are never going to have a "governor" or brake on the madness in our capital.

And, Henry Waxman is the most nasally, repulsive man ever to be photographed. :)

"Yeah, imagine a flag officer getting a little something on the side (*cough*)Eisenhower(*cough*)."

I wasn't talking about Ike's (alleged) discreet affair with his driver in 1944. I was talking about (a) a general in the age of twitter, facebook and e-mail leaving a huge electronic trail of evidence of his relationship with an evident psycho; (b) an FBI in which a loose cannon agent can persuade his colleagues to pursue an investigation in the absence of probable cause, and then improperly disclose his discoveries to someone in congress; and (c) an FBI Director who, when presented with the information, doesn't know what to do with it, so he punts it.

I don't ask that my flag and general officers be chaste (see, e.g., Horatio Nelson and Lady Hamilton). I ask that they not be recklessly stupid.

Isn't it more likely that he feared a failed rescue would cost him reelection, not only for badly managing it but because the whole story--renditions, arms transfer--would come out?

Interesting point. His base has sort of gotten used to Gitmo being open, drone wars, assassinating US citizens, and an expanded role in Afghanistan (he killed Bin Laden!), so would they really care about the reinstatement of yet another Bush-era program?

I can't think like a swing voter either, but his campaign it seemed to me was designed to buck up the base (which probably doesn't quite catch on he's following Bush on these things) and pandering to enough (mostly ill-informed ) voter tranches to get more than half of the electoral pie and this would have cost him I think.

well, those nostrils are scary, no matter what we call them. I still lean toward nasal too because I think the passages get bigger and bigger as they head for his brain...probably where his brains leaked out.

I did not know that Petraeus did not "have a single combat medal."The US Army didn't see much combat between 1974 (IIRC the year he graduated) and 2003. A week in Desert Storm? A small mess in Somalia. Amazingly little combat in Bosnia.

Natalie Khawam brings an insider's view of the government's prosecution of healthcare Qui Tam matters, having worked at the Office of the General Counsel for the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Ms. Khawam is experienced in Medicare and Medicaid fraud and has analyzed such cases for the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in conjunction with the Office of the Inspector General.

In each case, when and how? And what did each do with the information, and how do we know?

I think it is a good idea to think of all of these dopes much more as the gang that couldn't shoot straight than as the omnipotent schemers who can deceive us at every turn.

Go back to George Tenet's "slam dunk" and take it from there. Or, if you have the stomach for it, go back to the Best and the Brightest. Just because you're really smart doesn't mean you aren't a stupid shit.

But Kelley’s brother, David Khawam, said neither of his sisters had anything but a social relationship with Petraeus. He said Jill is a born giver who early on channeled her efforts into political fundraising and later to the military.

It is a quality, he said, born of the Catholic family’s persecution in their native Lebanon; when he, Jill and Natalie were small children, the family fled to the United States, he said. They built a productive new life in America. “We feel we owe everything we have to this country,” David Khawam said. “We’re extremely patriotic.”

But get this, same article

A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern officials.

That is a very important question to ask---What was going thru Patreaus's head during his testimony, when he knew that the Administration knew about his affair in sordid detail, and he knew what type of testimony would be beneficial to them?

Don't know if we'll ever get the answer to that but I'm glad Dr K asked it.

In my Nostrilitus comment of 8:05, I misused the term "set-up." I don't think Petraeus was set up by any spies or insiders or anything like that. It's all on him that he did what he did and stupidly exposed himself to discovery. I do, however, question the timing of his resignation and, even more so, the leaking of titillating details like "under the desk."

He could have been allowed to resign quietly. Instead, we get this coincidental timing, sex scandal circus, and a man's ruined reputation. It just seems suspicious.

"He could have been allowed to resign quietly. Instead, we get this coincidental timing, sex scandal circus, and a man's ruined reputation. It just seems suspicious."
----------------------
And if he was allowed to resign quietly we'd have every anti-Obama nutcase screaming (rightly) that there was a cover up of a major breach of security.

Full disclosure is the way to go. May be unseemly and a waste, but nothing suspicious about it.

Was interrupted last night and did not get the chance to hear the entire segment, but John Batchelor had an excellent discussion on Benghazi, Petraeus, etc. during the second hour, more detailed than first, synopsis follows:

Tuesday 1005P (705P Pacific Time): Larry Johnson, No Quarter, in re: Access agents: pp recruited overseas who have dinners and soirees where you can meet people for intelligence. SO many prominent US military men. Bayshore Drive in Tampa, longest sidewalk in the world, good address. Important people from everywhere visiting CENTCOM in Tampa dined at her house. Could the FBI investigation be into the possibility that she's an agent of a foreign power? She ran a charity that owes the IRS $3mil. She claimed to be JSOC liaison with State Dept. There exists no such thing; a very obvious lie. Did she have access to classified information? her family emigrated from Lebanon in the 1970s, went to Philadelphia. She probably speaks Arabic; is that why she became a social engineer for CENTCOM?

To conduct covert ops using US personnel, pres must issue a Presidential Finding. Pres Obama got around that: accepting money from Saudis or Qatar; used money to buy weapons, esp manpads in Libya; on 2 Sept, Petraeus in Turkey at a mtg; on Sept 11, Amb Stevens was in a mtg . Then Petraeus went to Libya to investigate, then CIA issued an odd statement on 26 Oct. FBI, which had plenty of time to visit a Floridian hostess but not to investigate Benghazi: they were forbidden to investigate by the White House.

Understand that Kelly's entertainment soirees continued for years and years, well predating Petraeus at CENTCOM (October 13, 2008, to June 30, 2010), and continuing right up to this past weekend, where reliable information relates that Flag(s) were attending yet another soiree at the Kelly home.

Journos are currently reviewing the TB Trib and other local papers' social pages for info on who attended the Kelly get-togethers and when. Lots of names will come out, safe to say that virtually anyone senior in Tampa over the last few years will have visited.

Petraeus served from the mid-70's onwards. Not many wars going on. By the time Desert Storm rolled around his unit(187th Rakkasans - Airborne) was not picked to go. This was also when he took an accidental discharge in the chest and almost died.

Once you're beyond Major, no CIB for you. Petraeus has been at the sharp end of the stick throughout his career. He commanded the 101st Airborne in Mosul, which was wild west, and got it under control using the same tactics and strategy he would later use in the Surge. He would walk through the markets with no body armor when everyone else was armored up.He leads by example.

I believe he felt it was his duty to take CIA at the request of his president. It fits his history.

John M. Granville (September 25, 1974 – January 1, 2008) was an American diplomat who worked in South Sudan. On January 1, 2008, he was assassinated in a shooting in Khartoum, Sudan at the age of 33.

and

May 7, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – One of the four Sudanese men sentenced to death in connection with the assassination of a U.S. diplomat and his driver three years ago in Khartoum has been killed in Somalia, his father revealed on Saturday.

JPEG - 7.4 kb
Mohanad Osman Yousif Mohamed, one of the men convicted in teh killing of USAID employee John Granville and his Sudanese driver in 2001 (INTERPOL Website)

The 32-years old Mohanad Osman Yousif Mohamed had managed to escape the maximum-security Kober prison in Khartoum with the other three convicts in mid-2010 and they remained fugitives ever since.

But one of the men was reportedly re-arrested along with other men who facilitated the breakout. There was no official confirmation of that however.

They were accused of firing fatal shots on John Granville who worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and his Sudanese driver Abdel-Rahman Abbas Rahma on New Years Eve 2008...

Laurence Michael Foley, Sr. (October 5, 1942—October 28, 2002) was an American diplomat assassinated outside his home in Amman, Jordan.

Born in Boston, Foley became a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1965 serving two years in India upon graduating from the University of Massachusetts. After earning a master's degree in Rehabilitation Counseling at San Francisco State University in 1969, he served as a probation officer in Contra Costa County, California. He later worked for the Peace Corps, serving as Associate Director of the Peace Corps program in the Philippines from 1980 to 1985. He served as Director of Administration at the Rehabilitation Services of Northern California until joining the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1988. After working in Bolivia, Peru, and Zimbabwe, Foley became Supervisory Executive Officer of USAID/Jordan in 2000.

On the morning of October 28, 2002, Foley was killed by gunshots from a 9 mm silenced pistol as he walked to his car outside his Amman home. On December 14, Jordan arrested two men, Libyan Salem bin Suweid and Jordanian Yasser Freihat, and charged them with killing Foley. According to Jordan, the men were paid to kill Foley by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Islamist militant leader, later the commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Though the men later confessed, they claimed they were forced to by Jordanian authorities.

In April 2004, the two men were sentenced to death for killing Foley. Zarqawi was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in the assassination, but was killed in a U.S. airstrike on June 7, 2006. Foley's assassins were executed on March 11, 2006.

On July 14, 2009, a Jordanian court sentenced Mohammed Ahmed Youssef Al Jaghbeer to death for his involvement in Foley's murder. Al Jaghbeer was first convicted in absentia in 2005. He was retried after his capture in Iraq and subsequent transfer to Jordan, but an appeals court overturned the second guilty verdict on procedural grounds and ordered a new trial. This court found that Al Jaghbeer facilitated contacts between Al Qaeda and an Amman cell that killed Foley.

One thing ...A lot of Peace Corps volunteers go on to USAID or the FAS (foreign Ag. service). Or at least they try to. Very common.
Graduate students, young adults finish school & are unsure what to do next...so they join the Peace Corps. It gives them "experience" & the feeling of doing something good for the world. Many fall in love with living & working overseas & the whole exotic experience. So after Peace Corp, what do you do???....many try for USAID or FAS jobs. They have probably even made friends with people in those organizations while in the PC.

There is a whole social world of all the Americans living/working in these foreign countries. The "worse" the country...the closer knit is the American (or western) community. Same schools, same bars, same parties. Lots of NGOs are part of this too.

Just so, Janet. Similar to DoD and defense contractors, there is also a movement after govt service (AID. Peace Corps,etc) to the NGOs either as a senior manager/Director or to the Board of Directors...